Saturday, January 12, 2008

The Best Laid Plans...

I had it all planned out. Watch West Ham beat Fulham, then spend the evening in the Millbank Lounge of the City Inn Hotel before moseying on over to the BBC to review the papers with Sarah Sands. Well, I am at the City Inn but their wifi has gone down so my plans to do a Daley Dozen and write about Peter Hain have gone awry. I haven't seen his statement yet, but from what I heard on the radio it smacks of the worst kind of Labour arrogance.

Anyway, I'm on News 24 at 11.45pm for those who are remotely interested.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ace work !! You will be able to give us early warning of any 'Further Damaging Revelations..' in the Peter Hain saga - Yay !!!!

SimonW said...

It has even got Betsan posting on a Saturday afternoon. He'll be toast by Monday. (Difficult he's already golden brown!)

Quink said...

I spent much of the afternoon in a Launderette and tried to see if I could make myself more miserable by writing about Peter Hain. I succeeded.

Paddy Briggs said...

"...worst kind of Labour arrogance..".

Could you enlighten us how this compares with the "...worst kind of Tory arrogance.."?

Isn't it just arrogance - do we need the adjectival hyperbole?

Anonymous said...

Iain - the statement can broadly be summed up as:

"Labour are great, I haven't done anything wrong, it's all the media's fault, the government is doing an excellent job at running the country, and I'm getting on with my brief."

Someone needs to smack this walking, talking crate of Orangina down a few pegs.

Anonymous said...

Can we access News 24 on the net? Does anyone know? Thank you.

Wrinkled Weasel said...

Really Iain, your posts of late have been so parochial that I rarely visit your blog anymore.

There are big debates going on on the MSM about Education and faith schools, particularly that some nonentity Labour MP has characterised Baptism as "child abuse". There is the continuing and increasingly bitter Obama/Clinton feud that has now descended to the race card. Even Matthew Parris is writing about Edmund Hilary.

Pulease, give em a break with the "Peter Hain has been naughty" schtick; it's obvious and goes nowhwere. (This government has no shame and we are well aware of it)

I know this blog is not your primary concern anymore, and it shows, but try and think before you fill it with barrel scrapings.

Anonymous said...

Paddy

The Conservatives never had anything like this. The only Labour improvement - every Labour scandal exceeds anything the Conservatives managed.

It is truly sickening that Hain tries to get away with clearly braking the law, a fact he does not even try to deny. I hope this damages Brown and the Labour party as it really should. Of course Brown will try, as usual, to spread the dirt, and encompass the Conservatives and LibDems despite it having nothing to do with them.

Weasel

This is important. I would suggest more important than any single issue, such as education, simply because it cuts to the heart of the government's way of working on all issues. It therefore has relevance to those issues as well as all others when the government conducts its business.

Note that I say government, not the Labour party. In the Conservative "sleaze" there was rarely any connection to the government of the country, almost all of those implicated were either involved in sexual impropriety or were outside government, on the back benches or in the party machine. With Labour everyone is implicated, up to both prime ministers.

Iain Dale said...

Paddy briggs, glad you agree it was arrogant.

Verity, i think so, should, be via the News 24 website.

Wrinkled Weasel, as you well know, it'snot possible to please all of the people all of the time. My traffic constantly rises so I assume I can take that as an indication of doing something right.

I have written a lot about the US presidential race (no doubt some would say too much) and I have covered huge numbers of subjects this week.

I don't know what you mean about this blog not being my main concern anymore. It never has been. Earning a living is my main concern and although this blog indirectly contributes to that, my paid work comes first. And I'm certainly not going to apologise for that.

I think you must have got out of the bed the wrong side today.

Anonymous said...

How come Tangoman hasn't wheeled out his agent (published and promoted by) Phil Woolarse to explain all these things. PollyPhilla will be used to it - after all it was him Blair's backside-protectors put up to explain away the WMD issue so this should be a piece of cake!

Anonymous said...

WW - Iain runs a political blog. He goes with the top stories of the day and goes with analysis of those stories for everyone to jump in on.

Education is an ongoing scandal. It's not news, sadly, that we are falling behind every other advanced country. You are not going to get the socialists to change this programme because this is the result they want. There's no news here.

Iain's posted several times on Obamerama and Hillary. It hasn't, as you say, "come down to the race card" at all. If you keep up with the news from across the Atlantic, you will see that it has come down to Barak Hussein Obama's lack of national - never mind international - experience and the fact that he belongs to a church supported by Black Muslim Louis Farrakahn. In other words, he's a dodgy character who is trying to coast through on charisma despite complete lack of experience in government.

In other words, he is a 50% white replica of Tony Blair.

Anonymous said...

Verity:

Click the link below three times in quick succession to bring up the link to BBC News 24 -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/tvseq/n24/nb/wm/video/news24_nb.asx

An alternative is to copy the shorter link below into your browser -

http://preview.tinyurl.com/2lsvpo

And an even quicker way of linking (though I know you don't like such things) is to follow this link

Good luck!

Daily Referendum said...

Nice slot Iain. No snoring tonight I hope.

John M Ward said...

Iain

You wrote: "I'm on News 24 at 11.45pm for those who are remotely interested."

Well, I'm always interested, but didn't read this until 1150, so rushed into the bedroom (where the nearer TV is) and switched on straight away.

Although I check your website for updates typically three times a day, I cannot be sure to catch such late announcements -- so, if you know when you're going to be on sooner than five hours (as in this case) beforehand, perhaps we can be warned sooner.

I have no Sky so had to miss your appearance there a few days ago, but always enjoy your newspaper reviews on News 24.

Meanwhile, as far as The Orange One is concerned, the view I have been reading is that (a) he can't resign because others such as Harman and Wendy A would also fall; but (b) this is good for the Conservatives, especially if Cameron makes a firm commitment to sorting out this whole funding business upon taking over from Gordon B post-election.

Heads we win, tails they lose. I like it :-)

Anonymous said...

Since you have so much time now Iain, any thoughts on Clegg's speech on rolling back the state?

Anonymous said...

Oh, Iain, just like that? I think not. That's why I asked you how to access it. If I'd thought that all I had to do was click on a link, I'd have clicked on it without asking you.

I asked because IT DOESN'T WORK.

If you want people to watch your programmes, you should provide an actual link instead of sending them off into a thicket of stupid BBC roundabouts and self-serving twee instructions that no one who is not a computer wonk would bother to try to understand. I hate the BBC.

Lakelander - Many thanks for at least offering assistance. It didn't work, but thank you for at least trying.

I can go to programmes on Fox News and Al-Jazeera and get to the actual programme with no twizzly little self-regarding wonky road blocks that the BBC puts up. I hate them and want them destroyed in the most painful way possible.

As a glint of an adjacent thought: There should be a work exchange programme between the BBC and the UN. With around the same number of employees, they should all do one another's "jobs" for a month. A complete switch. There would be absolutely no difference in tone or output in either establishment. They could pick up each other's boilerplate within 24 hours.

Perhaps people in Britain know how to access News 24, but people overseas do not and they are not going to slog through the roadblocks, and you are not going to get overseas exposure unless you can provide people a means of access to the programme.

I am peeved.

Iain Dale said...

Verity, calm down. I directed you to the News 24 website. I just visited it myself and there, clear as day is a button which says WATCH NEWS 24 LIVE. I had assumed that you were familair with the BBC website, which could not be simpler to use. I just typed in www.bbc.co.uk/news24, and whaddaya know...

Anonymous said...

Well, Iain, I typed in 'news24' because you didn't tell us to put 'bbc' in front of it. How am I supposed to know the format of every single broadcasting company on earth?

If you had told us what to type, we could have typed it.

Anonymous said...

Verity (and Iain), I don't think that BBC News 24 is available to web users outside the UK. The BBC has a World News strand for international viewers (as anyone stranded in an overseas hotel bedroom looking for something to watch on TV will recognise). So you may both be right - Verity can't access it because she is located outside the UK and Iain because the 'View News 24 live' button is available on the UK version of the BBC's website.

I may be wrong of course in which case no doubt many of you will correct me ...

simonh said...

George Osborne's apparent non-disclosure of £400k is, of course, an administrative error of little significance other than illustrating the absurd complexity of the Orwellian nightmare of the nanny state rules and regulations dreamed up by New Labour (sorry, Nu-Lab) to force civic-minded businessmen out of politics altogether. In fact, it's all Labour's fault and not little George's at all. In any case, it certainly doen't merit discussion...